It was today announced that Asbury Park Press staff reporter Bob Jordan has been named the 2009 Clyde Hirt Media Award winner by Harness Horsemen International

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Jordan will receive his award at HHI’s annual banquet on Wednesday, March 3, 2010 at the Embassy Suites Resort in Deerfield Beach, Florida.

“Mr. Jordan has written extensively on the plight of harness racing, and the horsemen of the Garden State, during the recent tough economic times in New Jersey,” the association’s board of directors said in its announcement.

While Bob Jordan was attending Ocean Township High School near Monmouth Park Racetrack, he spent his mornings hot-walking horses on the backstretch of the Oceanport thoroughbred track.

“My first job out of college (he graduated Rowan University in 1984) was in the publicity staff of the old Liberty Bell Park harness track in Philadelphia,” Jordan said. “In the last 20 years, as a horse racing writer for newspapers and magazines, I’ve covered many editions of every major stakes race held at the Meadowlands, Freehold Raceway and Monmouth Park.”

Since 1987, he has worked for the Asbury Park Press, which is based in Neptune, New Jersey.

“Horse racing is a specialty beat to go along with my other duties of covering the Monmouth County government as a political writer and investigative reporter,” Jordan noted. “I have won multiple awards, including a 2009 U.S. Department of Justice/FBI proclamation for ‘outstanding assistance to the FBI in connection with its investigative efforts.’ The FBI award was for reporting related to Operation Bid Rig, a long-term investigation into political corruption in New Jersey conducted by the FBI, IRS and the U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey. To date there have been indictments of more than 60 public officials and politically connected individuals.”

Jordan’s work experience also included writing for the Bucks County Courier Times, the Horseman and Fair World, Hoof Beats and other turf publications.

Jordan and his wife, Annette, are the parents of Kassandara, 18, a freshman political science major at Rutgers University, and Tyler, 16, a sophomore at Howell High School. Tyler is a graduate of the Harness Horse Youth Foundation's Youth League Camp in 2007.

In addition to the Hirt Media Award, HHI also will present its Person of the Year and Appreciation Awards.

W. Kenny Wood of Denton, Maryland has been selected to win the Dominic Frinzi HHI Person of the Year Award. Wood, a longtime horse owner and operator of Lifetime Well Drilling, has made more than a dozen trips to the African nation of Ghana and drilled hundreds of wells, bringing fresh water to thousands of the locals. Wood has financed most of these costs with the earnings from his horses.

The 2009 HHI Appreciation Award will go to Francis Azur for his dedication to the Orleans County Fair in Barton, Vermont. Azur, at his own expense, sent two of his best pacers, Blue Ridge Western and Nobel Falcon, along with trainer Kevin McDermott and drivers Tim Tetrick and Brian Sears, to Barton for the fair, exposing this small Vermont Fair to world class racing.

HHI is made up of harness horsemen’s associations from throughout the United States and Canada. These awards will be presented at the 2009 HHI Annual Meeting, February 28 thru March 4, 2010.

(SBOANJ)